SEO is an essential part of every SaaS business strategy, especially when looking for a solution to rank organically higher on search engines. But can you do it alone, or should you hire a SaaS SEO consultant to guide you through the whole process?
Keep in mind that no matter how simple it looks, SEO is a complex and time-consuming task. Hiring a consultant will ensure your SEO is on point, knowing that there are many industry changes, algorithm updates, and new trends. Still, the approach is similar – it all starts with a bunch of audits on your website and recommendations based on the findings.
Again, you may think, “I know best what’s happening on my SaaS website, so why should I hire someone to fix that for me?”
Trust us, if you’re not a part of the SEO industry, you indeed need a professional SEO consultant SaaS to help you build a strong strategy and enhance your online presence.
So, let’s explore your options about SaaS SEO consulting.
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What is an SEO Consultant?
An SEO consultant is an individual expert or an agency that offers SEO services for businesses of all sizes. Great SEO consultants can help businesses improve their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs), which can lead to more traffic, leads, and sales.
Overall, hiring an SEO consultant can be a great way to improve your website’s SEO results and achieve your business goals. Consultants help SaaS companies identify areas for improvement that depend on SEO, meet specific business expectations, and implement SEO tactics like keyword research, content marketing, and optimization.
If you consider hiring SEO consultants for your SaaS company, make sure they have enough experience in your industry so no one would waste anyone’s time and money.
In-House vs Outsource SEO Consultancy?
Some SaaS companies have in-house SEO teams who are absolutely dedicated to the SaaS brand. They completely understand all the challenges you face and can work on resolving them, giving your business the boost it needs. And yes, an in-house team of SEO experts, including SaaS SEO consultants, content marketers, technical SEO specialists, and copywriters, can be a great solution if you can afford their salaries, the tools they need, and, surely, a sufficient amount of the marketing budget.
On the other hand, hiring an outsource SEO consultant, such as a freelancer or a whole SEO agency, saves money on salaries, tools, and money to spend on execution. But they’ll need time to get to know the SaaS product better, understand your business, and then work on a strategy.
But no matter what you decide to do, you must remember that a SaaS SEO consultancy is all about detecting the issues that prevent your website from ranking better, attracting leads, and converting them to customers. With a custom strategy, you’ll resolve most of these challenges.
Still, you must choose the best option, and we are here to help you with that.
Things to Know Before Choosing a SaaS SEO Consultant
Before you hire people in your company, or a SaaS search engine optimization freelancer or agency, you need to determine a few things first, including:
What are Your SEO Goals?
What do you want to achieve with SEO? Are you hiring a SaaS SEO expert only for rankings, or do you want a completely new strategy for your SaaS website? Do you need to improve brand awareness, or do you want to publish quality content that attracts the right audience?
Once you know your goals, you can start looking for an SEO consultant who has experience helping businesses achieve similar results.
Specialized SaaS SEO Services
SaaS is an industry that requires unique SEO approaches. So, you must hire a consultant who understands this niche well, especially long-tail keywords, buyer journey, and prospects’ awareness stages.
Be Ready to Embrace the Feedback
When working with professionals, you may hear things you won’t like. No matter how perfect your website is, SEO experts can spot technical issues that prevent your website from ranking or even find outdated SEO strategies that simply don’t work. Embrace that feedback, and let these consultants do their magic.
Don’t Decline Their Recommendations
Sometimes, SaaS companies aren’t ready to embrace all the changes SEO consultants recommend. But if you don’t implement them, nothing will change for your company. Trust us when we say your SaaS SEO consultant understands things better, even if they don’t seem so logical at first.
Prepare for a Productive Collaboration
SEO requires patience and consistency in order to bring the desired results. You shouldn’t expect overnight results, as search engines must estimate your site’s helpfulness, authority, and reliability. Provide clear goals but have realistic expectations so the SEO collaboration can be successful.
What Happens After Hiring an SEO Consultant for My SaaS Company?
No matter if you hire a freelance SEO consultant, an in-house team, or a whole SEO agency, you can expect these things to happen:
Conducting an SEO Audit
A complete SEO audit includes a detailed report on what to improve on your SaaS website. It covers the technical SEO challenges, content improvements, and optimization in general. As a result, you get a clear idea of what can be improved and what it takes for your website to work perfectly.
Developing an SEO Strategy
The agency you hire, or the experts within your team, are responsible for creating an SEO strategy based on the audit. At this point, you know what keywords to target on the most important pages for the buyer’s journey, as well as what types of content work best for your business.
The SEO strategy must fit your overall business goals, but it may switch them based on the detected problems.
SEO Strategy Implementation
Your SaaS SEO consultant can work on SEO implementation if you ask them to. Keep in mind that consultancy doesn’t, by default, mean implementation too.
Still, if you decide to hire a particular agency or individual SEO expert, you must let them access your website, make the needed changes, optimize for relevant keywords, and improve the content marketing approach.
Tracking and Reporting
Once your SEO consultant becomes a partner, they will work on the implementation but also track and report results. That way, they can see what works best and adjust the strategy for even more optimal results.
How to Spot the Best SEO Consultants?
Hiring the right SaaS SEO consultant or agency can be a game-changer, but the wrong choice can lead to wasted resources and missed opportunities. That’s why it’s important to do these things:
Conduct a Detailed Interview
You must schedule at least one meeting or interview in order to understand what the SEO consultant offers and surely their knowledge of SaaS. They must be well-versed in a specific language and target audience and understand the SaaS sales cycles. Based on that, you can assess their SaaS experience and decide if the consultant or the agency is good to hire.
Check on Their Website for Track Record
Professional SEO agencies will offer a well-optimized site with plenty of real testimonials and case studies. So, take your time to check on their track record and see if the results fit your requirements.
Familiarity with SaaS-Specific SEO Challenges
SaaS requires a specific knowledge of the unique SEO challenges. Make sure your consultant understands the software’s features, billing models, trials and demos, and the audience’s expectations. A great SaaS SEO consultant can properly address these challenges and make logical suggestions on optimizing the website and content accordingly.
A Holistic Approach to SEO
We all know SEO is not only about keywords and blog posts. The holistic approach requires an understanding of content quality, user experience, technical optimization, and off-page strategies. The goal is not only higher ranks but also increased brand awareness, better user experience, and long-term sustainability when it comes to expenses.
How to Set Realistic Expectations for the SEO Strategy?
One thing you must remember is that a great SaaS SEO consultant, no matter if it’s an agency, freelancer, or an in-house employee, is not a magician. They can’t manipulate the search engine results. They don’t talk to Google’s masters and make them push your website on the first page.
Sadly, many businesses have unrealistic expectations that their website will rank for every keyword their consultant SEO SaaS will come up with. This is one of the reasons why the collaborations between SaaS companies and SEO experts are complex. So, as a SaaS business, you must know these things:
- Not every keyword you find relevant fits the buyer’s journey
- Not every content idea will bring you leads and conversions
- The SEO strategy is not a “signed, sealed, and delivered” thing
- Changes can be made to the initial strategy in order to make it work better
- Your competition can be harsh on you
- “Stealing” competitors’ strategies won’t work for you
- SEO strategies aren’t universal since every SaaS business is unique
- It takes time for the first successful results
Hiring an SEO consultant for SaaS is a long-term collaboration, with plenty of testing and implementation and tracking specific benchmarks and metrics. To effectively execute a strategy, it takes plenty of activities, including on-page optimization, technical fixes, off-page tactics, creating useful content, focusing on the buyer’s journey stages, and meeting the target audience’s expectations.
By considering all these things we mentioned in this blog post, you can spot and hire the best SaaS SEO consultant, no matter if it’s an agency, individual expert, or the best people to join your in-house SEO team.
